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Growth and Tradition
Columbia University's School of International Affairs (SIPA) was founded in 1946, in the aftermath of the Second World War. Emphasizing practical training, the school's mission was to foster understanding of regions of vital interest and to prepare diplomats, officials, and other professionals to meet the complexities of the postwar world. It originated in dynamic regional institutes that, with an interdisciplinary vision bold for its day, drew on Columbia's renowned faculties in history, economics, political science, linguistics, and other traditional fields. The school awarded a Master of International Affairs (MIA) degree.
By 1950 three regional institutes were in operation: the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute), established in 1946 and the first of its kind in the United States, the East Asian Institute, and the European Institute, both founded in 1949. During the 1950s and 1960s the school expanded in scope and depth. SIA, as it was then called, developed a national and international reputation as a leading center for educational and research programs in area studies, security, and international relations. By 1967 the school was home to eight regional institutes, covering nearly every part of the globe. Originally housed in a row of brownstones, the school moved its offices to its own 15-story building in 1971.
The school added a second degree in 1977, the Master of Public Administration (MPA), to meet the growing demand for skilled public service professionals. In 1981 the master's program was renamed the Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration, and the school was renamed the School of International and Public Affairs. With its principal degree programs firmly established, SIPA added functional concentrations to both the MIA and MPA in response to emerging areas of need and professional opportunity—from international finance to urban policy, and from human rights to environmental policy.
In the early 1990s SIPA began appointing its own faculty, adding to the list of distinguished social and natural scientists and humanists already at the University. Within 15 years, SIPA faculty were among the most prominent in their fields and included the one-time director of the U.S. census, a Nobel Laureate in economics, a judge on the appellate body of the World Trade Organization, economic advisors in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, a former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, and many well-known research scholars.
SIPA has continued to evolve. Its programs mirror a globalized world in which the boundaries between international and public affairs, like the boundaries between states, have grown less distinct. In 1992, with support from the World Bank, the school established the Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM)—with special emphasis on the problems of developing and transition economies—to provide mid-career finance professionals with the skills required for effective design and implementation of economic policy. Students who complete the PEPM's requirements are awarded an MPA degree.
To accommodate the needs of working professionals who could not pursue full-time study, SIPA established the Executive MPA program in 1999 as part of the Picker Center for Executive Education. And in 2001, the school introduced an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy, an intensive one-year program with core courses in management and policy analysis, as well as a concentration in environmental science and earth systems. In fall 2004 SIPA inaugurated its first doctoral program, the interdisciplinary PhD in Sustainable Development, which combines elements of traditional graduate education in social science—particularly economics— with significant training in the natural sciences. In addition, SIPA has established the Global Public Policy Network with the London School of Economics (LSE), the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. It has also become involved with a variety of collaborations with public policy programs at the Universidad Externado in Bogatá, Peking University and the Fundação Getulio Vargas, and other universities in Europe and Asia. SIPA also offers non-degree training programs in New York and around the world through the Picker Center for Executive Education. As it has for nearly sixty years, SIPA continues to provide committed students with the necessary skills and perspectives to become responsible leaders. A history of the school written in 1954 boasted that students came from six countries outside the United States and that graduates were working in 17 different countries. The class of 2008 came from more than one hundred countries, and the School's 15,000 alumni are working in 155 countries around the globe; proof that in the twenty-first century, SIPA is the world's most global school of public policy.